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One, Two, Buckle My Shoe

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One, Two, Buckle My Shoe
by Traditional
Augustus Hoppin's illustration, published in New York, 1866
Genre(s)Nursery rhyme
Publication date1805

"One, Two, Buckle My Shoe" is a popular English language nursery rhyme and counting-out rhyme of which there are early occurrences in the US and UK. It has a Roud Folk Song Index number of 11284.

Rhyme

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A common version is given in The Oxford Dictionary of Nursery Rhymes:

One, two, buckle my shoe;
Three, four, knock at the door;
Five, six, pick up sticks;
Seven, eight, lay them straight;
Nine, ten, a big fat hen;
Eleven, twelve, dig and delve;
Thirteen, fourteen, maids a-courting;
Fifteen, sixteen, maids in the kitchen;
Seventeen, eighteen, maids in waiting;
Nineteen, twenty, my plate's empty.[1]

Other sources give differing lyrics.[2]

Origins and variations

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In his The Counting-Out Rhymes of Children (1888), the American collector of folklore, Henry Carrington Bolton (1843–1903), quoted an old lady who remembered a longer version of this rhyme as being used in Wrentham, Massachusetts as early as 1780. Beyond the first four lines, it proceeded:

Nine, ten, kill a fat hen;
Eleven, twelve, bake it well;
Thirteen, fourteen, go a-courtin;
Fifteen, sixteen, go to milkin’;
Seventeen, eighteen, do the bakin’;
Nineteen, twenty, the mill is empty;
Twenty-one, change the gun;
Twenty-two, the partridge flew;
Twenty-three, she lit on a tree;
Twenty-four, she lit down lower….
Twenty-nine, the game is mine;
Thirty, make a kerchy.

Some of the final lines Bolton's informant could no longer remember.[3]

In the UK the rhyme was first recorded in Songs for the Nursery, published in London in 1805. This version differed beyond the number twelve, with the lyrics:

Thirteen, fourteen, draw the curtain,
Fifteen sixteen, the maid's in the kitchen,
Seventeen, eighteen, she's in waiting,
Nineteen, twenty, my stomach's empty.[1]

A version published five years later in Gammer Gurton's Garland (1810) was titled "Arithmetick" and had the following different lines:

Three, four, lay down lower ...
Eleven twelve, who will delve...
Fifteen, sixteen, maids a-kissing...
Nineteen, twenty, my belly's empty.[1]

In 1842, James Orchard Halliwell recorded "Shut the door" at the close of the second line.[4]

Since April 2023, a parodied version of the song was popularized as an internet meme.[5][6][7]

Illustrated publications

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An 1869 endpaper by Walter Crane

The rhyme was sometimes published alone in illustrated editions. That with lithographs by Caroline R. Baillie (Edinburgh, 1857) had an oblong format[8] showing domestic 18th-century interiors.[9] There were also two editions of the rhyme published from London, both illustrated by Walter Crane. The first was a single volume picture-book (John Lane, 1869) with end-papers showing a composite of the 1 – 10 sequence and of the 11 – 20 sequence. It was followed in 1910 by The Buckle My Shoe Picture Book, containing other rhymes too. This had coloured full-page illustrations: composites for lines 1-2 and 3–4, and then one for each individual line.[10]

In America the rhyme was used to help young people learn to count and was also individually published. Among these, the distinctive illustrations by Courtland Hoppin (1834-1876) devoted to each verse first appeared in editions published at the end of 1866.[11] In Old Mother Goose's Rhymes And Tales (London and New York, 1889) there was only a single page given to the rhyme,[12] illustrated by Constance Haslewood in the style of Kate Greenaway.[13]

Notes

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  1. ^ a b c I. Opie and P. Opie, The Oxford Dictionary of Nursery Rhymes (Oxford University Press, 1951, 2nd edn., 1997), pp. 333-4.
  2. ^ Knowles, Elizabeth M. (1999). The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations. Oxford University Press. p. 550. ISBN 978-0-19-860173-9.
  3. ^ Henry Carrington Bolton, The Counting-Out Rhymes of Children (New York, 1888), p.92
  4. ^ J. O. Halliwell, The Nursery Rhymes of England (London, 1842), p.132
  5. ^ "What Is The '1, 2, Buckle My Shoe' TikTok Meme? The Viral Video Explained". Know Your Meme. 17 April 2023. Retrieved 16 May 2023.
  6. ^ One Two Buckle My Shoe Is Actually Fire, 21 April 2023, retrieved 16 May 2023 via YouTube
  7. ^ "The 'one, two, buckle my shoe' meme explained". indy100. Retrieved 16 May 2023.
  8. ^ Cover at Abe Books
  9. ^ "One two, buckle my shoe" at The Book Press
  10. ^ “Walter Crane, part 1”
  11. ^ Uniform Trade List Circular (Philadelphia, November 1866), p.237
  12. ^ Fine Art America
  13. ^ Leslie McGrath, "Print for Young Readers", in History of the Book in Canada, University of Toronto 2005, Vol.2, p.405